Any and all users wishing to print to a networked printer device via the network must first install print driver software onto their PC/workstation. In a networked print environment, installing a print driver can be a troublesome and error prone task. The user must first understand how to locate and navigate through the PC/workstation Operating System Graphical User Interface (GUI) to launch the printer installation process. Once launched, the “add-a-printer” installer program will prompt the user to specify the location of the device print driver. If the print driver is located on a disk, e.g., CD or DVD, it may have become separated from the printer, held by another user, or lost.
If the print driver software is located on a remote network server, the user must be able to identify the network address (URL) for that specific web server. Many users will be unable to provide this information. Once the print driver is specified and loaded, the installer program will search the network for all available printers that match the type (manufacturer and model number) selected by the user. The installer program will then present that list of printer(s) to the user. This list may be rather lengthy and is likely to include information that quite often is not readily understood by the new user, who may or may not know which specific printer to select.
Further, whereas these initial installation steps highlighted above might be well spelled out within documentation provided by the printer original equipment manufacturer (OEM), this information is often unavailable for new users who have just gained access to network and who may be initiating this driver installation process many months or even years after the printer was first installed on the network. Yet another facet of the print driver installation challenge involves the proper identification and support for any and all optional accessories installed on the devices e.g., duplexer, additional paper trays, etc. Typically, the device driver installer configures only the standard/the user must manually configure baseline features, and any optional features within the device driver. Such a manual update process is often unknown to or not well understood by the user, resulting in the optional features being inaccessible to that user. Additionally optional printer accessories, e.g., a finisher, may have been installed some period of time after the printer was installed on the network. The traditional disk, CD, or server based print driver may not have been updated to reflect these optional accessories.
One prior art method (U.S. Pat. No. 6,989,910 B2) for automating the installation of shared printers over a network involves the deployment of an intelligent Print Server processing node. The Print Server, when carefully configured by a professional administrator, can be made to identify when a new printer has been installed on the network, then create an automated print driver installer program, which is then sent via email to a predefined group of users. Shortcomings of such a methodology include the infrastructure and manpower costs associated with the professional administration of a dedicated Print Server node. Further, the apparatus does not address the common need for new users to physically find the location of and then select a network printer that has been resident on the network for some period of time. Finally, any visitor on the network, given their lack of an email account, would not be able to tangibly benefit from this installation support.
Another prior art method (U.S. Pat. No. 6,301,012 B1) is focused on the automatic installation of a print driver onto a dedicated Print Server node but provides no means of support to assist the user with the installation of the print driver onto their individual PC/workstation.
Yet another prior art method (U.S. Pat. No. 7,136,174 B2) describes a networked printer with the capability of hosting its own web page (i.e., a printer resident web server) wherein installation software is available that when executed is able to manage the PC/workstation print driver installation process. However, this printer web page based installation program and process cannot be accessed without the new user first knowing the target network printer's IP address. The user must enter the IP address into a web browser as the URL to access the printer's internal web page. Many users will be unable to provide this key information or might enter the information incorrectly. This particular prior art invention recognizes this critical shortcoming of their web page based installation process and presents an alternative installation methodology when the IP address is unknown.
This alternative approach attempts to simplify the installation process by allowing the user to identify the particular network printer that they wish to access by physically going to the printer, and then via the printer front panel initiating the network broadcast of a unique printer “beacon”. This beacon (a network data packet broadcast) is designed to enable the print driver installer to identify the specific printer that is targeted by the user. However, this alternative approach does not assist the user in any way with navigating through the PC/workstation Operating System GUI to launch the printer installation/configuration process. Furthermore, it does not assist the user with specifying the location of the device print driver installer. Given these shortcomings, many users will be unable to successfully install their print driver with this alternative methodology.
Accordingly, it is an objective of this invention to automatically assist and encourage a user to properly configure a printer driver to the appropriate settings and to provide a system and methodology that is considered to be simple, intuitive, accurate, and complete for all users (novice to expert). The method and related system can be also applied to other network linked devices such as network scanners.